Every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end (weekly crypto updates)

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What happened in crypto in the past week? Bitcoin is moving in some interesting ways, and even USDT is trying (again?!?) to connect with it. BlackRock launched its first staking ETH ETF. Prediction markets are the hot stuff right now. I found a way to expose myself to BTC via BlackRock, using Freetrade. Feel free to check them. What else? Read below:

• Bitcoin: BTC ETFs are so back, with a weekly inflow for the first time in five months. Yet, on-chain analyst Willy Woo said that the current Bitcoin rally is just another bull trap, as we are in the middle of the bear season. I hope so, I want to buy some cheap one if possible. Canaan is stacking BTC and ETH while miners panic sell. Bitcoin is holding up while tech stocks are dropping, so I can see why they chose this. We even got an $80K prediction by June. Bitcoin miners build massive energy infrastructure to mine crypto, and AI companies need this, so Core Scientific and Riot are pivoting hard. Still, Bitcoin hold steady,, moving up 0.79% this week, and ETH followed with 0.74%. Binance Research just released a report about how much BTC dropped every US midterm, and the answer is: a lot (56% in 2014, 73% in 2018, 64% in 2022).

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• Ethereum: ETH was beaten by tokenized oil on Hyperliquid, as its volume crossed a billion dollars. One whale levelraged $194M 20x long on BTC and ETH. Is this the start of the bull market? BlackRock launched ETHB, its first staking Ethereum ETF.

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• Altcoins and stablecoins: Solana got modest gains as the geopolitical tensions are easing. Foundry Digital runs the largest BTC mining pool in the world, and now is launching an institutional Zcash pool in April. Zcash surged 600% in the past year. Across Protocol has a proposal to convert the DAO to a US C-Corp, converting tokens in equity. Sonic introduced USSD, Sonic's native stablecoin. Tether backed a startup called Ark Labs, with the goal to make Bitcoin usable again for stablecoins and payments, after they dropped support in 2023. Lido lets your stablecoin to earn while you sleep, with a new protocol called EarnUSD, for USC and USDT. Pump.fun crossed $1B in cumulative revenue.

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• NFTs and blockchain games:Pudgy Penguins introduce Pudgy World, a free-to-play browser game, as the latest expansion of the PP ecosystem. I have also enjoyed playing Golem Overlord lately on Hive, and it is quite enjoyable, I would say, with some significant updates lately. On Splinterlands, we have had the Land NFT new update and improved tokenomics, and the new cards from the Conclave mini collection are up and running.

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• Good news: Florida (of course, you do!) passed the first state-level stablecoin regulatory framework in the US, with zero votes against it. The Governor will sign it within thirty days. Tokenized stocks just crossed a billion dollars, with Ondo having 58%, xStocks, 24% and everyone else splitting the rest. Mastercard partnered with Binance, Ripple, Circle, Paypal, Gemini, Solana, Avalance and other 85 crypto companies. They are cooking something cool in there.

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• Bad news: Trump named crypto a national security priority, alongside AI and quantum computing. Please get him out of the job! South Korea's tax authority is building an AI-powered system to track crypto and flag tax evasion.

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• Joke of the week: Kalshi and Polymarket are both reportedly in talks to raise 20 billion dollar valuations each, double what they were worth just months ago. Their combined monthly trading hit over $18B in February. Some serious stuff, Palantirm the AI and data analytics firm that built surveillance tools for the US military is partnered with Polymarket to monitor trades, screen users and catch manipulation in real time across its sports markets.

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All the best,

George

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Why not...

...have fun and win rewards on my favourite blockchain games (Splinterlands- a Hearthstone-like card game) (Golem Overlord - a Play2Earn game on Hive) (Upland - a real-life virtual land) (Holozing - a Pokemon-like game)and ( Chain of Legends - with a hint of Heroes of Might and Magic).

...get crypto while writing on the Publish0x blog. I am also writing for crypto on Hive.

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